Somalia’s national identity initiative represents one of the country’s most significant digital governance projects in decades. In a country where fragmented records, weak verification systems, and institutional silos have historically limited service delivery, the establishment of the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) has increasingly been viewed as a foundational step toward modernization.
But across Africa, the role of national identity systems is rapidly evolving.
The conversation is no longer only about issuing identity cards. Increasingly, governments are treating digital identity as part of broader Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) foundational systems that support banking, public services, digital payments, healthcare, telecom registration, authentication, and trusted coordination between institutions.
This shift raises an important question for Somalia:
Is NIRA primarily building an enrollment system, or is it laying the foundation for a broader digital trust ecosystem?
The distinction matters because the long-term value of national identity systems will not come from enrollment numbers alone. Their real value emerges when institutions can securely verify and trust identity information across sectors and services.
In recent months, Somalia’s digital identity ecosystem has begun showing signs that the conversation is moving beyond physical cards.
Through platforms such as HUBIYE, eAqoonsi, and related digital verification initiatives, NIRA appears to be moving toward identity authentication and verification infrastructure rather than identity issuance alone. Publicly available information suggests these systems are intended to support identity verification, authentication workflows, consent-based identity checks, and trusted digital interactions between institutions and citizens. In practical terms, this signals a transition away from identity cards as standalone documents and toward identity systems functioning as reusable verification infrastructure across sectors.
This direction reflects a broader continental trend.
Across Africa, some governments are increasingly developing identity ecosystems that function as interoperable trust infrastructure rather than standalone registration systems.
In Rwanda, digital identity has become part of a wider e-government architecture through platforms such as Irembo. Citizens can access a growing number of public services digitally through connected systems where identity verification is integrated into service delivery. Rwanda’s model places strong emphasis on institutional interoperability and trusted digital coordination.
Ghana has taken a similarly strategic direction. The Ghana Card ecosystem has increasingly expanded into institutional verification services used by banks and financial institutions through eKYC workflows and digital identity verification. Rather than relying solely on physical card inspection, institutions are encouraged to authenticate identities digitally through integrated systems. This strengthens institutional trust and reduces operational inefficiencies.
Kenya presents a different but equally important lesson. Initiatives such as Huduma Namba and later Maisha
Namba demonstrated both the opportunities and challenges associated with large-scale digital identity programs. While Kenya remains one of Africa’s leading digital economies, debates surrounding privacy, governance, inclusion, and institutional trust revealed that digital identity systems are not only technology projects, they are governance projects requiring transparency, safeguards, and public confidence. Kenya’s experience demonstrates that nationwide digital identity systems require not only technical infrastructure but also sustained public trust and institutional legitimacy.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia is developing one of the continent’s most ambitious digital identity initiatives through Fayda, which is built on the MOSIP framework. Fayda places significant emphasis on interoperability, digital verification, and eKYC integration. Part of the motivation behind the initiative was the limitation of fragmented legacy systems that lacked centralized verification mechanisms and enabled duplication and fraud. Ethiopia’s approach reflects the growing continental movement toward interoperable digital trust infrastructure.
Somalia now appears to be entering this broader regional conversation.
While Somalia has made visible progress in expanding digital identity infrastructure, questions around nationwide interoperability and institutional alignment remain important.
Recent updates presented at ID4Africa 2026 by NIRA officials indicate that Somalia has registered more than 1.4 million citizens, established approximately 70 registration centers nationwide, and connected over 100 services to the national identity ecosystem. These developments suggest that Somalia is actively building foundational digital identity infrastructure and positioning identity systems as part of broader digital transformation efforts.
At the same time, questions regarding institutional alignment and nationwide interoperability continue to shape discussions surrounding Somalia’s digital identity ecosystem. Some federal member states, including Puntland and Somaliland, have publicly expressed concerns regarding governance, implementation authority, and operational coordination surrounding national identity systems.
This highlights an important reality observed in many Digital Public Infrastructure initiatives globally: building technical infrastructure is only one part of the challenge. Long-term effectiveness also depends on institutional trust, governance coordination, legal clarity, and broad ecosystem participation across jurisdictions.
The emergence of systems such as HUBIYE suggests that NIRA’s direction may increasingly involve identity verification, authentication, and institutional coordination rather than enrollment alone. However, an important distinction remains between establishing infrastructure and achieving ecosystem maturity.
Many institutions in Somalia are still in the process of understanding, integrating, and operationalizing how NIRAissued identities can be digitally verified across systems. Banks, universities, telecom operators, and government entities continue navigating fragmented onboarding processes, varying levels of interoperability, and uneven integration maturity. In many operational environments, institutions still rely heavily on manual review processes, visual inspection of identity cards, or disconnected verification procedures rather than integrated authentication workflows.
This should not necessarily be interpreted as institutional failure. Rather, it reflects the reality that building interoperable trust infrastructure is significantly more complex than issuing identity cards. Establishing a functioning digital identity ecosystem requires institutional coordination, technical integration, governance alignment, operational readiness, and long-term adoption across both public and private sectors.
Digital identity systems become transformational only when institutions are able to interact through trusted and interoperable verification mechanisms.
If ministries cannot seamlessly authenticate identities between systems, if financial institutions continue relying primarily on visual card inspection rather than integrated verification, or if service providers cannot consistently access trusted identity validation mechanisms, then the ecosystem risks remaining administrative rather than transformational.
This challenge is increasingly important as Somalia’s digital economy expands.
Financial institutions require trusted identity verification for compliance and onboarding. Universities increasingly require secure authentication systems. Telecom operators, payment providers, healthcare systems, and public institutions all depend on reliable digital coordination. The growing linkage between identity infrastructure and systems such as the Somali Payment Switch (SPS) further demonstrates how digital identity is increasingly becoming connected to broader financial and service-delivery ecosystems.
The strongest national identity systems are no longer measured primarily by how many cards they issue. They are increasingly evaluated by how effectively they enable institutions to trust, authenticate, and verify identity information across the economy through secure and interoperable systems.
Somalia also holds a unique strategic advantage.
Unlike countries constrained by decades of deeply entrenched legacy infrastructure, Somalia remains relatively early in the development of many national digital systems. This creates an opportunity to design interoperable systems from the beginning rather than attempting to retrofit disconnected institutional architectures later.
- The key questions therefore are no longer simply:
- How many citizens have enrolled? How many IDs have been issued?
- The more important questions are:
- Can institutions securely verify identities across systems?
- Can ministries communicate through trusted digital infrastructure?
- Can banks integrate identity verification into eKYC workflows?
- Will Somalia build isolated databases or interoperable digital trust ecosystems?
These questions are increasingly central to Somalia’s long-term digital transformation strategy. The long-term success of Somalia’s digital governance agenda may ultimately depend not only on digitizing institutions, but on enabling those institutions to securely trust, verify, and communicate with one another through interoperable systems.
NIRA remains an important national initiative and a major institutional step for Somalia. But the long-term success of Somalia’s identity strategy will likely depend on whether the country evolves beyond enrollment and toward interoperable verification infrastructure capable of supporting trusted coordination across sectors.
Somalia’s digital identity journey is therefore no longer only a question of enrollment scale. It is increasingly a question of whether the country can build interoperable and trusted digital infrastructure capable of connecting institutions, services, and citizens across a fragmented governance environment. The long-term success of NIRA may ultimately depend not only on how many identities are issued, but on how effectively those identities function within a broader national digital ecosystem.
Across Africa, the direction is becoming increasingly clear: modern identity systems are no longer only about identification. They are becoming foundational layers of Digital Public Infrastructure itself.
Hassan Mohamed is the founder of Oshen, a digital infrastructure company focused on building trust systems and Digital Public Infrastructure solutions for emerging markets, with a particular focus on Somalia and East Africa.